How to Build a World-Class Marketing Team and Culture in a Competitive B2B Industry

As markets continue to evolve and B2B industries become more competitive, it is imperative for companies to be more strategic and results-driven with their marketing. B2B companies need to also have the right team and culture in place to stand out and have a more strategic advantage over their competitors.

Join us in our conversation with B2B marketing veteran Jasmine Martirossian (Chief Marketing Officer and Chief People Officer, Mercury) as we discuss the biggest challenges that B2B marketers face. In our discussion, Jasmine elaborates on the mistakes that B2B marketers should avoid and how to get buy-in from other business units for marketing initiatives. Jasmine also talks about how to deal with pushback, how marketing can be the “voice of the customer” in the organization, and how to build a more marketing-driven internal culture that encourages innovation and experimentation.

https://youtu.be/RfxYZyy1sm8

Topics discussed in episode

• Jasmine talks about the biggest challenge of building world-class B2B marketing teams in a competitive industry [2:22]
  
• Some of the common mistakes when it comes to building up the right marketing team internal culture [6:00]
  
• How B2B marketers can get buy-in from other business units within the organization, and how to deal with pushback [12:53]
  
• Jasmine discusses the importance of leading with strategy and market research [19:18]
  
• Why a better internal culture helps create a more marketing-driven organization [23:45]
  
• Actionable tips from Jasmine: [30:14]
  
  • Change your voice: from internal (“Me, me, me”) to focusing on the value you deliver to clients
    
  • Be a thought leader
    
  • Don’t make it boring – talk about human issues in your content
    
  • Prioritize – be completely stellar selectively
    
  
  
• Metrics to pay attention to: [34:05]
  
  • In terms of critical keywords tracked, website performance, email marketing performance, and the ability to bring in inbound leads and convert to revenue
    
  • If possible, look at the cumulative impact of marketing in the overall sales cycle
    
  
  

Companies and links mentioned

• Jasmine Martirossian on LinkedIn
  
• Mercury 
  
• TÜV SÜD 
  
• Simple Human 
  

SPEAKERS

Jasmine Martirossian, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for changemakers where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt industries, and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing, one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by EINBLICK Consulting, helping you to stand out in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp.

Okay, welcome, everyone to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry, and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host Christian Klepp. And today I am joined by someone on a mission to help B2B companies to reinforce brand strength, develop inspired teams, drive value, and as well as generate revenue. So coming to us from Boston, Massachusetts, Jasmine Matirossian. Welcome. And I have to say it’s an absolute pleasure to have you back on the show.

Jasmine Martirossian  01:15

Christian, it’s a pleasure to see you again and be on your show. Thanks for having me.

Christian Klepp  01:20

Absolutely. I’m really looking forward to this conversation, Jasmine, because if our previous conversation was any indication of the topic, I mean, so this is, I would say very pertinent to teams that are in a similar situation, as yours. So let’s get started. And I’m going to start with this, I’m gonna say short of stating the obvious, you have an impressive track record of success and B2B, right? So you have focused in the past on building consensus and developing creative solutions for cross functional global groups with different needs and goals. But let’s narrow the topic down a bit for this conversation. And this topic, I’m going to say, I’m going to dare to assume that it’s become part of your professional mission, how to build world-class B2B marketing teams, and a culture in a competitive industry. To kick off the conversation. The question is, what would you say is the biggest challenge that someone faces in that situation I’ve just highlighted,

Jasmine Martirossian  02:22

Building the team, you can accomplish anything with having the right team. But getting the right team together goes a long way. And so you have to understand a number of variables, you have to understand what the needs of your organizations are, at that very point in time, you have to understand where you’re trying to arrive, what’s your mission, and you have to have the right people by your side to arrive at their destination, because nothing happens by happenstance in that kind of a mission driven situation. So then you have to understand the composition of your team, you have to understand strategically what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. And you have to align the right resources, in my case, under the circumstances, and I would recommend for others to think the same way. These days, it has to start with people who have very strong digital skills, who understand SEO, and who understand how to align the right kind of content to bring to the right search engine results, and to rise up in rankings. And now since like last October, we have the impact of ChatGPT, which means a lot of kind of “vanilla content” is being generated, it can help but it’s not the answer by itself. So knowing how to become even more competitive in this ultra competitive environment, to be strategic and execute seamlessly makes a world of difference on outcomes.

Christian Klepp  03:57

Absolutely, absolutely. And of course, no surprise that you brought up ChatGPT because that’s the that’s the name on everybody’s lips these days. I don’t know if bot is eventually going to take over remains to be seen. But um, it’s the question about artificial intelligence and I suppose how that can complement, not replace but complement the work that you’re doing your team are doing alright.

Jasmine Martirossian  04:20

So, truth is artificial intelligence has been with us for a long time. And it’s been behind the scene running the engines all the lot of sides tools that we’ve all been using. So it’s not a novel thing. The minor difference, or maybe even major is that now it’s opened for access by so many people. Now how it’s used, I mean, there are… it’s been with us, it’s going to be with us, but how it’s used. For instance, it does not bring sources. I does not validate things. It could be plagiarizing. So there was a host of concerns that people should think about. And we mean it is with us, it will be so. You use the right word “complement” – how it becomes part of your manual of offerings and skill sets. But really, you can’t give up on your own self improvement skills on how to write better, you know, it’s not a substitute, and those that kind of become captives of it will never evolve at the level they could.

Christian Klepp  05:33

Absolutely, absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next question, which I am very confident you will have no problem answering. Talk to us about on the topic of building up the right team, the right marketing team and the right internal culture. Talk to us about some of the common mistakes and misconceptions that you’ve seen around these particular topics and how marketers should address them.

Jasmine Martirossian  06:00

It’s a great question. A lot of teams, be marketing in organizations overall, build up a structure that is too complicated. And when you build that complexity, you’re adding unnecessary barriers for people to thrive. And you’re slowing down the process. So having a team that’s fairly flat, yes, there will be some layers, but that’s fairly flat is important. Having a team or everybody understands what the other person is doing is also extremely important. You’d be surprised in how many organizations people trip over one another. I’m not going to name the name of an organization, but I know one. And I was there at some point where there were about 400 marketers, some were product marketers, some were field marketers, everybody tripping over one another. And 50% of their time was spent in coordinating as they’re working on the same thing. What not to do, or sometimes there was duplication of effort, that becomes counterproductive. So team size is also a matter. Like in that same organization, it took 27 people to touch a single marketing automation email that went out. That’s insanity. Right? But because the organization was big, over a billion in revenue, somebody could hide that. That’s unbelievable lack of efficacy and efficiency. By contrast, for instance, when I was at TÜV SÜD, really one person was sending out with collaboration from content managers, over 1800 email campaigns a year. So it’s how you build the team, how there is a division of labor, you know, we’re talking about industry 4.0, which is now 5.0 on the horizon, which is the fourth industrial revolution, in essence, and IoT, banks. But the reality is, we can’t forget also the lessons from industry 1.0, that the Industrial Revolution, the specialization is really critical. So there should be enough… And by specialization, I’m talking also about ownership, ownership, accountability on the team of who’s driving results where we tend to forget about those things.

Christian Klepp  08:38

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, my jaw just dropped. Did you did you say, 400 marketers in the other company?

Jasmine Martirossian  08:46

In one company. Yes. There were about four hundred, 398 to be precise at the time I was there. But then I learned that it had mushroomed to more afterwards.

Christian Klepp  08:57

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the things that you’ve said in the past couple of minutes really resonated with me. And I was working with a client in a previous role. And they had to go through seven layers of approval. Right? If you write an article that’s supposed to go out on not external, like the internal intranet, that had to go through seven layers of approval before it was published, and by the time it was approved, two weeks have passed, three weeks have passed. Right. And I think that was the point of the discussion. I mean, these organizations sometimes are their own worst enemy. Right? They hamper their own progression with all their rules and guidelines and players of the red tape for lack of a better description.

Jasmine Martirossian  09:46

Exactly. And then in the end incapacitates as opposed to helping or bringing agility and delivering results.

Christian Klepp  09:57

Absolutely, absolutely. So Once again, with reference to the topic of building up a marketing team and the right culture, break it down for us. I call this a bit of a Lego approach. But this is definitely something that is pertinent to marketers out there. How do you get buy-in from the senior management and the other business units for what you’re proposing to roll out? So that’s the first question. The second question is, how do you deal with the pushback?

Jasmine Martirossian  10:26

Their buy-in, it’s pretty straightforward deal, you know, you have to speak about the impact of results that you’ll be delivering. And in reality, you better deliver those results, right? It’s measurable, the work of marketing in a way is very straightforward, because you either have the results or you don’t. It’s pretty straightforward. It’s either done or it’s not. And when it comes to objections, thankfully, I haven’t encountered too many objections in a very long time, partly because I’m working with enlightened leaders. And the value of marketing today is very different than it was even 20, 30 years ago. But what marketing does today, it’s actually revenue marketing. It’s there is marketing driven sales, marketing, actually, the buying journey has changed. Before digital marketing, and before the ascendance and power of the internet, ecommerce, sellers of products had more information, so they had more power than the buyers. Now, it’s the buyers that have more information. They do their research has the power of inbound leads, which is really marketing effort. So when they come, it’s the companies to lose rather than to gain. So here’s somebody who’s raising their hand who’s willing to make a purchasing decision, and so well oiled, well aligned organizations that can capture those people and turn them into customers.

Christian Klepp  12:05

Well, those are great points. I think what I wanted to say was, if we just backtrack a little bit, right, because, okay, it’s great that you’ve, you know, you’ve been in situations where you had leaders that were pretty much aligned with your vision, short of playing the devil’s advocate, let’s suppose you’re in a situation where, for instance, and this happens in B2B, more often than not, right? You’re in an organization or an industry that has built up their business over 25 years, without necessarily using any marketing. And then all of a sudden, they introduced the marketing function. And of course, there’s resistance to it. Because you know, people don’t know what they don’t know. Or if they don’t understand it, then they feel maybe it’s not that important. How do you deal with that kind of situation?

Jasmine Martirossian  12:53

You really have to start by showing right. You talk to sheep, anybody can talk and promise things, you know, ask for permission to experiment, you know, and make a case there that organizations that do not know how to fail fast will not last into the next several decades. Right? So that’s very important for the organization to learn to allow for new experimentation, new ideas, they need to drive innovation, don’t take the no kind of as an answer. Because you’re right, if somebody has existed for 25 years, and they’ve had no marketing, why bother suddenly, but then talk to them about the lost opportunity cost, what it is that they don’t even know that they’re missing, or that by not doing marketing, they’re seeing this and also, it’s how its positioned. I put in old fashioned organization, marketing is viewed as a cost. Whereas I think marketing should be viewed as a revenue generator and contributor. So that kind of changes the whole perception. You know, it’s a paradigm shift, to use a fancy term. And once you come at it from that angle, then most leaders really would actually be at least curious to try. So don’t say, okay, wholesale buy everything, asked to try, and show wherever you can, you can make traction in certain things. I mean, it’s in the positioning. For instance, if somebody is not investing into their website, talk about it. It’s a living 24/7 store for you, right? It’s your front. It’s an organization that doesn’t sleep in effect, because you can, you know, attract global buyers from different time zones, and talk about how that storefront can serve your needs. Looking at data, people usually love seeing numbers. So talk from a data perspective and show them what can go where. Do not over promise much because once you over promising you under deliver that’s like the kiss of death. Do not ever do that. But be realistic, show what can be. And if you make certain efforts, what results you can deliver, and also be very vocal about the results. A lot of marketers don’t do their own marketing, but you have to learn to do your own PR to emphasize where there was a contribution or not. And frankly, if it’s not working, find out why it’s not working, because it should look inward, look at what you’re doing that you could be doing differently. And remember, very often, a lot of you know quotas, numbers will go up with expecting different gigantic results. And one should always say, okay, what are we going to be doing differently? Yes, because to do everything the same way and expect a different outcome? Is, as they say, the definition of insanity.

Christian Klepp  16:01

You took the words right out of my mouth? Absolutely. Absolutely. You brought up a really great point that I wanted to go back to about being vocal about the results, and also marketers doing their own PR. So I think you and I have both seen situations where marketers are hesitant or reluctant to do that. And why do you think that they hesitate to do that? Is it because they’re afraid to rock the boat, especially if it’s in a large organization?

Jasmine Martirossian  16:30

It could be a lot of things but one of the things that I’ve learned that in life, even though something may be self evident to you, because you’re the subject matter expert in that area, it does not mean that it’s self evident to others, so, and a lot of the people may underestimate the power of that, right? It’s so easy to think, Oh, it’s so obvious. I know about this, but only because we know something and we take that for granted, does not emphasis on “not” translate to others knowing something and really had making that connection, or even seeing the causation. So to me, a lot of people fall into that trap. Because again, if it’s obvious to us, and most people don’t want to brag, right, yeah. You know, they think but it’s so self evident. But it may be self evident to you as the expert, but not to others who may not make that connection.

Christian Klepp  17:32

Exactly, exactly. Well, hence also the reason why they encourage marketers who are presenting reports to non-marketing people to drop the jargon, and the abbreviations and the acronyms, right, because that’s designed to confuse.

Jasmine Martirossian  17:47

Jargon, it’s very interesting. People sometimes don’t even notice that they use jargon, deep down, it gives them a sense of belonging and expertise. But in the end, it’s actually alienating and isolating. And a lot of people if they don’t understand the jargon will be embarrassed to ask, hence, it becomes more of a trap. Because people don’t want to show that they’re uninformed. Of course there is Google, you could always look up a lot of things. But…

Christian Klepp  18:20

Yes, probably not no board meeting but yeah absolutely. Well, it depends on it depends on the layout, right? If your angle where people can see your laptop.

Jasmine Martirossian  18:31

Yah, people searching under the table on their phone.

Christian Klepp  18:36

Yes, yes, then you know exactly what’s going on.

Jasmine Martirossian  18:41

But drop the jargon, I’m with you, 100%. And companies also…, that’s a bit there’s another dimension to jargon. Sometimes jargon seeps into marketing materials. And it’s not serving your client base. It alienates them.

Christian Klepp  19:02

There are those that say, marketing should lead with strategy and market research. And this will eventually make the marketing function, the voice of the customer in the organization. Agree or disagree and why?

Jasmine Martirossian  19:18

Very good question. So voice of the customer is immensely important. At Mercury, all executives C-suite members are expected to spend time with customers. Because you can’t make judgments about customer pain points, client pain points, their expectations, their real needs kind of in a vacuum, right. That’s why sometimes you’re dealing in a situation where a company’s changing their offering in a way that really doesn’t make sense to the client base. Most likely, it’s some kind of a backroom decision without taking the voice of the client to consideration. So you’re doing a disservice if you’re not to hearing the voice of your client, market research is extremely important. And I have a lot of background in it. So I would never dismiss it, it’s importance. But then famously, the, you know, iPhone was launched without any market research, because it was such an innovation that people will not even know what they were missing if they didn’t know what they were missing. So there is a very interesting balance on innovation with that, again, strategy is insanely important. But any strategy that’s not executed upon or implemented is useless. And, you know, because like talk is cheap proposition. So, and you know what, a mediocre strategy well-executed, it will usually deliver better results than phenomenal stellar strategy that’s not executed at all, so to speak of strategy without an execution plan and roadmap is also useless.

Christian Klepp  21:02

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s, it’s interesting, because some of those points you’ve highlighted where there’s a bit of a balance between the two, and others, it’s just okay. Well, yeah, to your point on the iPhone, exactly. Like, how would they have done the testing and the research on that if it didn’t even exist at the time?

Jasmine Martirossian  21:23

And they did not validate with people use it, right? So there was the Apple brand factor. So all these things matter. So to me, it’s about context and balance. For some items, absolutely, you’ll need market research. For others, you kind of have to innovate and go into it. So context really matters. So it’s not a one size fits all thing. But always be informed of the market, always understand the human sentiment, always take into consideration the client experience. So all these things do matter. No question about that. And voice of the customer. Truth is the most people talk about the voice of the customer. But a lot of the time, things they even on the marketing end, they build all these complex things. And then they’ll go with a survey to get a voice of the customer. And it’s a 30 question survey, which is not going to be effective, because you can’t do one survey and get answers to everything. So then it’s a check mark, oh, we got the voice of the customer. But how valid are the responses that you got? Like did they just like get tired and go through it? Did you pay for it? Like, what’s happening here?

Christian Klepp  22:38

Yeah, yeah. A lot of factors, right? Like, did you ask the right questions? Or did you asked guiding questions where the answers were kind of obvious, right?

Jasmine Martirossian  22:45

Precisely. And sometimes, you know, surveys are good. Again, you have to ask the right questions, you should not lead them. But sometimes what if you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s a limited perspective of what you had. What if you conduct a few in depth interviews with your clients, and you might find out so many other things that are not even on your radar? That would never make it into a survey. So sometimes the survey will reaffirm what we’re expecting to know or learn, but it’s not going to go too far.

Christian Klepp  23:21

Exactly, exactly. In your own words, and you’ve highlighted some of these points already, but talk to us about the importance of building a competitive culture in a B2B company. And how will a better internal culture help to create a more marketing driven organization? And when I when I say competitive, I don’t mean like everybody’s fighting against each other. Right? I mean, it’s healthy competition.

Jasmine Martirossian  23:45

You know, I can speak about Mercury’s case. At Mercury, our values, we really try to live our values. It’s client obsession, relentless improvement, world class teamwork. So that in itself creates the foundation for doing something better each time, kind of living the philosophy of Kaizen, which is a Japanese philosophy of driving incremental improvements all the time. If you have that mindset, it really goes a long way to deliver a better results,  not to work from satisfaction, but to keep driving continuous improvements and that is an ever evolving, going to the top. So by doing that, instead of being like stuck, this is how we’ve done it. You allow to improve the customer experience, you know, you’ll see you see on LinkedIn and others, people say oh, the most dangerous phrase in the English language is, “this is how we’ve always done it”. But truly that’s a trap. Because that gets in the way of innovation. Because things change if we do not change and evolve, client needs change, client mandates change, our internal processes have to also evolve to, you know, serve that better, right. And world class teamwork, how are we helping others succeed? On our team, how are we approaching that? Is there a sense of ownership? Is there accountability? So it becomes a philosophy for the organization. So most value statements, you know, you look at a company’s value, and it’s like this paragraph that nobody remembers. But your values have to be short, memorable, and livable, above all. So that’s what we aim for at Mercury.

Christian Klepp  25:46

Absolutely, absolutely. There’s something interesting I’ve encountered in past roles, and I’m not sure if you’ve had that same experience, but I guess, depending on where you are in the world, and I was out in Asia Pacific for a very long time, and people there had different interpretations of what world class means, right? For the most part, like, for example, in China, they interpret that to be okay, you want us to follow the Western way? Which is, which, which was, which was something that they were genuinely resistant to. But over to you, have you encountered that? And how do you deal with that kind of situation?

Jasmine Martirossian  26:26

You’re right culture reference points will make a world of difference depending on where you are in the world. And, you know, for instance, in North America, people actually will look more inward, right, they will not look at my job or… But world class, the way we would interpret that at Mercury would would mean. So anywhere in the world, our clients, because we have clients all over, will feel that they’re cared for. And then we could use those practices and share them and they will be accepted anywhere in the world. That’s, that’s the idea of a world class. Not referencing Western Eastern, but really trying to be best in class. That’s another way of putting world class, is best in class.

Christian Klepp  27:20

Exactly. Exactly. So it’s basically to say, it’s not about East or West, or our way is better than your way. But how do we do it in such a way that we achieve that customer satisfaction, right? How do we do this professionally, right, do a good job and achieve better output.

Jasmine Martirossian  27:41

And frankly, these days in different countries of the world that are not in North America, sometimes you encounter way better service and practices. So we need to be open to learning from anywhere, anytime. To me, the world class really means best in class, and evolving and learning from anyone. And that’s the key to evolution, because you don’t know where the next development’s coming from.

Christian Klepp  28:09

Absolutely, absolutely. Case in point. And this is just for the audience out there. If you’re interested. This is not necessarily strictly B2B, I will say this is more of B2B2C situation. But look up on YouTube, the video series around the Changi Airport in Singapore. Now, that is my definition of a world class airport. But it’s interesting to watch this documentary, because you see what goes on behind the scenes to make sure that it stays that way. That is no small feat.

Jasmine Martirossian  28:41

See now that’s the key thing, right that it stays that way, if I’m not mistaken. In recent World airport rankings, it was ranked number one or two. It’s one of the top airports anyway. But keeping it that way, because sometimes something was totally innovative at one point, and then it stops and then somebody else comes up with another different, like groundbreaking approach. And then this doesn’t follow suit. So staying that way is really important. You know, and then the Middle East, they talk, everybody talks about Dubai. But seriously, Abu Dhabi and Doha. Doha are so ahead also, right. It’s each has its own place, but it’s no longer THE one. So being stuck in that paradigm that they have to constantly try to do the next best thing.

Christian Klepp  29:40

Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So we come to the point in our conversation where we talk about actionable tips and Jasmine, Let’s appreciate that. You know, a lot of the things that you’ve been talking about or we’ve been talking about in the past couple of minutes. These are probably not things that you can do in one day, right? But if there’s any B2B marketer listening to this conversation out there, and you would want to give them three to five things to take away from this conversation that they can immediately act upon? What would they be?

Jasmine Martirossian  30:14

Number one, change your voice so you’re not doing me me me. A lot of B2B marketing is so terribly boring and self focused. If you look at the voice, it’s we do this, we’re the best. We we we me me, me, chest thumping. That’s doesn’t matter. Because if you look at your competitors, everybody else is saying the same thing. What value do you deliver to your clients. So really review your materials in… it’s basic editing, just change your voice, truly become a thought leader in that right, really participated does not have to start with groundbreaking stuff, it could be as small as changing how you position your LinkedIn posts. Speak again to the client needs and speak outside yourself. A lot of B2B marketing has kind of a bad reputation. Because let’s face it, it’s boring. It does not have to be boring. Like there, it’s just really the limitation is in people’s heads. Don’t make it boring. Talk about human issues. Fundamentally, whatever B2B is doing, it’s still serving people. So reach out to the people to the decision makers, to their pain points, be human in your voice, that will make a huge difference. Be a reliable source of wisdom. Don’t do you know one and done things that doesn’t work and that does not deliver. So instead of being super good this, super, actually average or mediocre on 15 things, identify five, and ace those and rocket those. Be completely stellar at those five. And also make choices, learn how to prioritize. You don’t have to ace every social media platform and site, you really can’t. But choose one that you can really dominate and own and develop your presence in a way that comes across. You know, I mean, if you look at a company like Simple Human, they do trash cans. How exciting can trash cans be? Yet the voice that they have the positioning their guarantee, their speaking to clients goes a long way to making it a fascinating side proof positive that you can do it with any item, any product, any service, you just have to find the right voice and step outside of yourself. You know, such as the Me Me Me, I’m coming back to my first point, whatever you do, step away from that Me me me approach.

Christian Klepp  33:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s definitely fantastic advice. So just to recap what you said. So first was change your voice, be a thought leader, speak to your clients and speak to their pain points and their challenges, I think is what you were trying to say. And the be a reliable source of wisdom, and prioritize and focus. And I think that’s such great advice, like this whole attempt to be everything to everyone will is just the road to nowhere, right? So, you’ve given us that great piece of advice, or, you know, you’ve highlighted these five points, which is a great segue into the next question, which all marketers will have to face at some point. I always call it face the music, they have to show somebody higher up that what they’ve been initiated, and what they’ve implemented is working. So what metrics do you think marketers should be paying attention to?

Jasmine Martirossian  34:05

That’s a great question. And metrics are insanely important. So you have very personally digitally focused so my metrics will look at where we are in terms of SEO, in terms of critical keywords we’re tracking, how is the website performing? How’s our email marketing, performing? And then the ultimate metric, if you’re honest with yourself becomes your ability to bring in inbound leads and convert them to revenue. There is no bigger metric.

Christian Klepp  34:38

Absolutely. I love that. I love that because, you know, you can twist and turn it however way you want, and show all these charts. But if you can’t prove that what you’re implementing is actually generating inbound leads, then it’s gonna be a tough conversation at the end of the year. Right.

Jasmine Martirossian  34:55

Exactly. And there’s one more metric that very few people talk about, but It’s like, looking at the cumulative impact or marketing, this is more complex to calculate. But marketing does have cumulative impact in your overall sales. And sometimes you can’t really isolate that. But you can do it with some hard work looking back understanding trends, putting a special dashboard, but that’s a more sophisticated approach on top of it. So people in the initial stages may not be ready to do that. But more advanced marketing organizations can actually do that.

Christian Klepp  35:36

Exactly, exactly.

Jasmine Martirossian  35:38

One more thing when it comes to that cumulative impact, let’s say inbound leads, they come they go. But then if you can track with the CRM, see that once they become customers, how much more revenue is coming from them. Part of it is marketing contribution.

Christian Klepp  35:57

That’s a really good one. That’s a really good one to track.

Jasmine Martirossian  35:59

Over the years, right? It’s almost never done by marketers, again, because it’s complex to get to that. And it kind of  breaks the traditional mold of marketing. But seriously, that contribution is a mess.

Christian Klepp  36:15

Exactly. Exactly. All right, Jasmine, what is a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with? And why.

Jasmine Martirossian  36:29

Status quo that I disagree with? banner ads (laugh). Like, if everybody would listen to this, and cumulatively, they would save billions of dollars. I’m sure lots of companies that seldom…., I’ve never seen banner ads have that amazing impact that it’s promised, I’ve actually experimented and tested. Let’s face it, it’s completely useless. Give it up. Don’t do it. Don’t go there. That’s what I would, you know, jump into the proverbial pool to drown.

Christian Klepp  37:08

Absolutely. And I think to your point, there are so many other ways to generate results out there. It does not have to be with banner ads.

Jasmine Martirossian  37:20

Those funds can be redirected to so many other better things like LinkedIn promoted content. You can do things with it or better content, but just just give it up. Yeah, don’t do it. Live with it. I’ll support your efforts. Just don’t do it.

Christian Klepp  37:41

No, fantastic. Fantastic. Jasmine. As expected, this is such an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for your time, quick intro to yourself once again, and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Jasmine Martirossian  37:54

They can get in touch with me at LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn. So you can just message me anytime. And our website is shipmercury.com. And my email is Jasminem@shippingmercury.com. But LinkedIn is always there. Very easy to connect with.

Christian Klepp  38:16

Fantastic, fantastic. Jasmine. Once again. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks again for your time. Take care. And talk to you soon.

Jasmine Martirossian  38:23

Thank you, Christian. It’s been a pleasure being on your show and love the questions.

Christian Klepp  38:27

Thank you.

Jasmine Martirossian  38:28

Bye bye. Thanks.